LYTHAM FOOTFALL DATA

Lytham is a seaside resort town located in the Fylde borough. It is renowned for its quality retail and hospitality offer, and is the backdrop for major events such as Lytham Festival and Lytham 1940’s Weekend. There are several superb tourism attractions such as Lowther Pavilion, Lytham Hall, and the famous Windmill on the green. The town also boasts amazing Christmas Festivities organised by the community.

The town features a central high street hosting many independent retailers, service providers, and eating establishments to suit all tastes. It is well connected by car, bus, and train, with the train station just off the town centre. Blackpool, St Annes, Preston and the motorway network connect Lytham well, and new M55 access routes have vastly improved commute time.

Lytham benefits predominantly from a mature, affluent demographic visitor sector. The quality of dining establishments increases yearly, and the main square is full of prime examples. There is no beach in Lytham, but nearby is Fairhaven Lake, which offers a variety of newly regenerated activities, from boating to adventure golf and tennis to crown green bowling. In addition, the town is a great base location for the avid golfer, with several stunning courses in the area, some of them Championship level and above.

Adjacent business parks accommodate a mix of SMEs and larger enterprises, with BAe Systems being less than ten minutes from the town sector, providing significant employment opportunities for residents.

Footfall data, gathered via geo-location-enabled mobile devices, estimates visitor traffic. The accompanying map’s blue and red zones represent the captured areas and main streets, respectively.

Please click on the images to produce a larger image in a pop up window.

This table shows the indicative numbers of people (with mobile devices enabled) who visited Lytham during the month. This also includes residents and workers who shop, have their hair cut, visit the pub, post office etc., and all this foot traffic, mostly with spending involved, benefits the local economy. Of note Lytham saw very little increase in visitors June 2023 v June 2024.

This graph shows the indicative numbers of people (with mobile devices enabled) who have visited Lytham over the last few years. You can see the effect that Covid and the Winter months have had on the local economy. Lytham benefits from a strong visitor economy, especially in the Spring and Summer, whereas it relies on local spend during the darker months. The main peak in June can partially be attributed to the influx of visitors to Lytham for the Lytham Festival, an event over five days with 25,000 attendees. Not all visit the town centre, which is what this data reflects. It must also be remembered that June 2024 saw 17 days of rainfall, with average temperatures of 12- 18°C. May was also a poor month weatherwise in the UK.

This chart shows how Lytham is performing in the footfall numbers against other towns in the North West and UK. This figure varies from month to month. Lytham is performing well against the UK and above the North West average, despite being at 0% growth.

Dwell time refers to the time a shopper or visitor spends in a town centre, event, shopping centre, or individual store. It is a crucial metric because the longer visitors stay in a location, the more money they spend. Extended stays (over 40 minutes) are encouraged through attractive and well-maintained high streets, high-quality retail and hospitality venues with excellent customer service, interesting artisan markets, and engaging visitor experiences such as events and town trails.

Additional incentives, like loyalty card schemes, events, ambient music, offers, and sales, motivate visitors to prolong their stay and make repeat visits. This benefits multiple businesses on the high street by attracting the same customers.

Lytham performed well on dwell time in June 2024, with 46% of visits being over 40 minutes long, 26% being 20-40 minutes long, and shorter visits of less than 20 minutes accounting for 28% of town centre visits.

Many Lytham businesses benefit from joining the Shop Local in Fylde loyalty card scheme and have access to business support to help them improve their business performance. Fylde Council has approved a new regeneration scheme to level Clifton Street’s pavements, establish a safer treeline, and improve street lighting and electric connections. This work is due to commence in late 2025/26.

Lytham has several strongly supported businesses and local community groups working year-round to organise events and keep the town neat, tidy, and full of flowers. This continued collaborative work helps improve the upper dwell times needed to increase Lytham’s spending potential.

Where do visitors to our towns come from and why does this matter?

It is important for both the private and public sectors to appreciate where a town and, indeed, borough footfall, originates from to conduct target marketing. Marketing, whether this be digital media, paper/poster advertising, or social media is conducted to entice both shoppers, visitors, as well as investors and new businesses.

Marketers can source their own data to examine footfall demographics in-depth, but the town’s main postcode statistics provided indicate potential areas for marketing activity to assist with improving customer loyalty and repeat visits.

The maps provided here show the extent of the postcode area origins of those visiting Lytham. See the scales to the right of the images. The circles indicate the mile radius to provide scale. The blue and red depict the density volume of those visiting.